02x06 - A Fatal Attraction

[bunniefuu]

[music playing]

NARRATOR When love turns to rage,

the victims of two different domestic v*olence cases

end up in the morgue.

In the first, the body of a man is found inside a car

with a Kn*fe stuck in his chest.

The scene was very gruesome.

The entire front windshield was just covered in blood.

NARRATOR Discovered in the back seat,

the body of a second victim, a woman.

This was the first time I've seen that.

That actually raises the hairs on your back of the head

of what really happened here.

In another domestic abuse case, police respond to a call

and find an unexpected victim.

She feared for her life.

And she sh*t him.

Was the sh**t a battered woman pushed to the brink

or a cunning k*ller?

Well, right there I can tell you, that's not true.

That just couldn't have happened.

NARRATOR Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries,

shocking revelations, these are the everyday cases of Dr. G,

Medical Examiner.

[music playing]

In

NARRATOR The morgue of Dr. Jan Garavaglia, better known

as Dr. G, the average autopsy usually takes

about minutes to complete.

And it's her job as a forensic pathologist to make

sure every minute counts.

DR GARAVAGLIA You want to answer all the questions

during the autopsy.

You only have one chance at that body before it gets buried.

NARRATOR And in the case of a violent homicide,

that means Dr. G often gets just one chance

to identify and catch a k*ller.

Each year nearly million husbands,

wives, friends and family members

att*ck each other in violent, domestic disputes.

Tragically, about , will end up in the morning.

The task of determining whether these deaths are accidental,

self-defense, or intentional m*rder, often

falls to the medical examiner.

I got a lot of work to do.

NARRATOR One such case took place

when Dr. G worked at the Bexar County morgue

in San Antonio, Texas.

It's the middle of February in San Antonio, Texas.

In a church parking lot, a man getting ready for a field trip

makes a horrific discovery--

a blood spattered vehicle with a man's body inside.

OFFICER ODOMS Very, very gruesome.

There was blood all on the windshield.

The entire front windshield was just covered in blood.

So it was a very violent scene.

NARRATOR When EMS arrive, they immediately

enter the vehicle to determine if the victim is deceased.

But obviously he is.

Protruding from his chest is a large Kn*fe.

That was probably the worst I've seen here so far.

NARRATOR Then EMS makes another horrendous discovery.

EMS Ma'am, are you OK?

NARRATOR There was a second victim in the car, a woman.

She too appears to have been fatally stabbed.

We found the female lying face down in the backseat, pinned

between the back seat and the front bucket seats

on the floorboard face down.

[music playing]

NARRATOR From a passport and driver's license,

the victims are identified as -year-old Andre Tarlev,

an army officer from Eastern Europe,

and Loreen Behner, a -year-old San Antonio resident.

Her family is the first to receive

the unimaginable news about the death

of one of their eight children.

NANCY My daughter Cindy had been notified.

And she told me, I'm sorry, mom.

She said, I'm sorry, Loreen's dead.

DAVID There was all just disbelief.

No one could believe that someone

could hurt someone that was so generous

and to me was an angel.

And everybody described her that way.

I mean it was just beyond belief that someone could hurt her.

I guess I was just in a state of denial.

I mean it was a very difficult ordeal for me to hear.

[music playing]

NARRATOR By AM, the bodies of Loreen Behner

and Andre Tarlev arrive at the morgue

as Dr. G is briefed by her medical investigator.

DR GARAVAGLIA He reports to us that there's two--

there's a man and a woman found dead in a car.

She is face down on the floorboard in the back seat.

And he's dead in the front seat.

And they appear to have certainly

significant trauma, a lot of blood,

pulled head hair of hers.

SGT EVANS We have no witnesses, and we

have no one alive that can really tell us
[ … ]

what transpired that evening.

All we have is the physical evidence.

NARRATOR With little to go on, Dr. G

faces a formidable challenge-- determine

exactly how the victims d*ed and who k*lled them.

DR GARAVAGLIA In this case, my job is to try to kind of sort

out what happened.

How long could they have lived?

Can we recreate what went on here?

Was it a spur of the moment thing?

Was it thought out and planned?

And you never, ever know what other information

is going to be gathered.

You just don't know what's going to be developed.

NARRATOR Sure enough, homicide detectives pursuing the case

in the field soon obtain more information

about the two victims.

According to family and friends, Loreen Behner

was a competitive dancer who was recently divorced

after an -year marriage.

At age , she was pursuing a graduate degree in biology.

And she was not involved in any serious relationships.

DAVID Loreen was going through a phase

where she liked going out with a lot of different people.

And she usually made it very clear upfront she wasn't

interested in a relationship.

NARRATOR Only two months earlier,

she and the male victim, Andre Tarlev,

met at a Christmas party on a nearby Air Force base.

I know that he was nice to her.

They did do a lot of things together.

I know they took a couple of trips together.

SGT EVANS He was very educated.

I believe his rank was that equal to a captain

in our m*llitary.

So he was a supervisory officer.

So he was obviously a man that had

some prestige in his m*llitary.

NARRATOR Detectives also learned from m*llitary personnel

that Officer Tarlev planned to return

home to his family in Eastern Europe in only two days.

As she does with all stabbing victims,

Dr. G begins her hunt for a k*ller

by having her assistants X-ray each body from head to toe.

Stabbings are often difficult forensic cases.

Dr. G will need every piece of evidence that can be found.

DR GARAVAGLIA Forensically, there's

not a whole lot you can tell, honestly, about some

of these Kn*fe wounds.

Some of the things you can't do I've seen on TV.

I mean you can't put latex in the wound

and then get the shape of the Kn*fe.

I mean that's just ludicrous.

NARRATOR Because there are two victims,

Dr. G will supervise one autopsy and perform the other.

Loreen Behner is the first to be examined.

DR GARAVAGLIA On her, we would look for any foreign material

on her, maybe give us an idea where she'd been,

if they'd been somewhere else, leaves or things like that.

NARRATOR As the morgue buckles down

for what promises to be a difficult day,

one question weighs heavily on Dr. G--

what tragic story will these bodies tell?

And I've had cases where they have terrible external trauma

and it ends up they're not dying from that.

You can always be surprised.

NARRATOR Coming up next, clues mount

and evidence begins to point to a possible k*ller and a motive.

All he ever talked about was the girl

that he was seeing, that he was totally in love with her.

DR GARAVAGLIA That actually raises

the hairs on your back of the head

of what really happened here.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

[music playing]

Some dried blood, we'll have to get that off so we can see.

NARRATOR The autopsy of stabbing

victim Loreen Behner begins with an exhaustive

external examination.

DR GARAVAGLIA We need to document the wounds,

kind of give a picture of maybe how long it took her to die.

NARRATOR Loreen Behner and Andre Tarlev

were found early in the morning, dead in a church parking lot.

Although it's obvious that they were stabbed,

it's not yet clear who k*lled them and why.

As Loreen's wounds are examined, one thing

becomes immediately clear.

Loreen's att*ck was ferocious.

DR GARAVAGLIA She has five s*ab wounds to the chest region.

She has a s*ab wound to the back of the right arm, which

actually goes in towards the elbow

and extends completely through the arm.

And she's got a s*ab wound to the upper left arm.

NARRATOR In total, Loreen sustained over Kn*fe wounds.

And the location and nature of some of the injuries

tell Dr. G something else about Loreen's att*ck.

She was fighting for her life.

DR GARAVAGLIA When we start seeing wounds, in her case,

Kn*fe wounds on her chest or on her head,

and then she's got more superficial wounds or non-life
[ … ]

threatening wounds across the fingers, across the wrist,

to the elbow, that means she's using her arms and hands

to try to protect herself--

protect herself from the Kn*fe, in this case,

hitting her chest or head.

DAVID She was not a very large person.

But for her size, she was quite strong.

And I'm sure she fought very much to try and to stay alive.

NARRATOR When the external exam is complete,

Loreen's body is opened with a y incision.

Internally, the parts of the stabbing injuries are traced.

The damage is found to be significant.

One s*ab wound fractures a rib and penetrates the lower

lobe of Loreen's right lung.

Another penetrates nearly inches into her abdomen,

transacting her diaphragm and perforating her liver.

Then Dr. G discovers a single Kn*fe wound

near the center of her chest.

She can see that it passed through the sternum then

pierced her left pulmonary vein, one

of four major blood vessels leading from the lung

to the heart.

This is the injury that was lethal,

a single wound that ended Loreen's life.

DR GARAVAGLIA The one that went into her pulmonary vein

would be the one that would be the most deadly.

They came that close.

NARRATOR Dr. G can now tell investigators not only

how Loreen Behner d*ed, she can also tell

them the nature of her m*rder.

DR GARAVAGLIA When you actually look at her,

she's obviously a homicide with the multiple s*ab

wounds to the chest, the defense rose to the hand.

You know, when we see Kn*fe wounds,

we see a lot of Kn*fe wounds, it's correlated

with a lot of passion.

NARRATOR In other words, Loreen's m*rder

was not an anonymous crime of opportunity.

Her k*lling was a crime of passion.

DR GARAVAGLIA It's very personal death.

Two guys fighting, you know, two guys in a Kn*fe fight,

you only usually see one or two that really go in,

a couple of slashes often.

But when you see multiple, you know, , , , , you know,

I've had them where they've had , , , s*ab

wounds, it's usually passion.

NARRATOR The unsettling conclusion,

Loreen Behner's k*ller was likely someone

who was infatuated with her.

Unfortunately, it is not unusual for a female victim

to know her attacker.

Statistically, female m*rder victims

are significantly more likely than men to be

k*lled by an intimate partner--

a spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend.

And because Loreen most likely knew her k*ller,

her death is classified as a crime of domestic v*olence,

a type of homicide that kills more than ,

women every year in the US.

Hi, Tammy.

Welcome to the family, I hope my brother

Scott-la-la-lottle doesn't treat you the way he did with me--

DR GARAVAGLIA Domestic v*olence is

unfortunately all too common.

They're tragic.

We wish you both the best of what life can bring.

Bye.

That's all.

I walk out of the picture.

NARRATOR But the question still remains.

Who could the k*ller be?

DAVID She liked going out with a lot of different people.

And quite often, she'd go and meet someone.

And they were saying friends originally.

But after three or four weeks, they

were wanting a relationship.

And then she had to somehow break that off.

And that was always a difficult thing to do.

A lot of times the guys would want more from her

even though she had told him that she

was interested in a serious relationship.

[buzzing]

NARRATOR Loreen's autopsy reveals only part of the story.

Dr. G hopes the body of the second victim, Andre Tarlev,

will tell her more.

Coming up next, the autopsy of Andre Tarlev

has scarcely begun before Dr. G draws a disturbing conclusion.

DR GARAVAGLIA When you look at her,

you don't know for sure what happened.

I think when you look closely at him,

it puts the whole story together.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

[music playing]

NARRATOR Stabbing victim Andre Tarlev

is stripped and photographed.

Then his wounds are counted and examined.

DR GARAVAGLIA You look at him, initially

he has a s*ab wound with a Kn*fe still sticking out

of his chest.

NARRATOR Dr. G has already determined
[ … ]

that Loreen Behner, the woman discovered

in the vehicle with Andre, was m*rder*d in a crime of passion

and that she knew her k*ller.

But no one yet knows for certain who that person is

or why he took the lives of both victims.

The last remaining place to find answers

is the body of Andre Tarlev.

[music playing]

Pretty much--

NARRATOR When Dr. G carefully analyzes

the wound in Andre's chest, she discovers something odd.

The w*apon was thrust into Andre's

heart, not once, but four separate times through only one

opening.

DR GARAVAGLIA You could see the pericardial sac,

or the sac around the heart, had four separate defects to it.

And then the heart was sliced along the lateral ventricle.

And it completely went through the heart

in at least two areas.

NARRATOR The heart wounds enable

Dr. G to quickly determine the cause of Andre's death.

He had massive internal bleeding.

So he definitely d*ed from the s*ab wounds to the heart.

NARRATOR And Dr. G believes the rest of Andre's tragic story,

including the identity of his k*ller is carved upon his arm.

DR GARAVAGLIA He has not just the s*ab wound to the chest,

but has incised wounds down his arm,

parallel horizontal incisions that sequentially cut

the muscles down the forearm.

You can see it as if you're cutting a loaf of bread,

slicing the artery and vein along the way

very neatly down to the bone.

NARRATOR For Dr. G, the wounds

raise immediate red flags.

They are unlike any of the injuries

found on Loreen Behner.

DR GARAVAGLIA These are quite different than defense wounds

like she has.

She has the defense wounds on the tips of her fingers

from trying to grab the Kn*fe.

NARRATOR But that's not all.

DR GARAVAGLIA You look closely at the Kn*fe

and it's got her hair on it.

He's got her hair tangled up in his hands.

So when you look at her, you don't

know for sure what happened.

I think when you look closely at him,

it puts the whole story together.

NARRATOR The evidence found on Andre's body is overwhelming.

The absence of any defense wounds,

the uniform series of slashes down his arm,

and the clump of Loreen's hair tangled in his fingers

all lead to one stunning conclusion.

The k*ller of Andre Tarlev and Loreen Behner is Andre himself.

DR GARAVAGLIA The pattern of the wounds

are suggestive and certainly look like this

is a homicide-su1c1de.

But then you build the case.

That's why we have an investigator.

That's why we have the police.

Does that make sense with what I'm finding at autopsy?

NARRATOR And Dr. G's conclusion is corroborated

by additional information that detectives

turn up on Andre Tarlev.

SGT EVANS Co-workers said that really for the last three weeks

he had been changed.

All he ever talked about was the love he had for the girl.

He didn't want to leave.

He wanted to marry her.

She was the love of his life.

And that it was really upsetting that he really

couldn't live without her.

And those are the things that we determined

in our investigation that helped cement

the m*rder-su1c1de theory.

NARRATOR Based on the autopsy findings and information

gathered from the homicide investigation,

Dr. G can now piece together the circumstance that

led to Loreen Behner's tragic m*rder and the violent su1c1de

of Andre Tarlev.

While at a Christmas party on a nearby Air Force Base,

Loreen Behner meets officer Andre Tarlev.

SGT EVANS He's visiting from overseas

attending this language school.

They had a relationship.

She thought it was just social.

He took it a step further.

He fell in love with her.

His tour was up at the language school.

It was time for him to go back.

And he had told several of his co-workers and subordinates

that he didn't want this relationship to end.

[car starts]

NARRATOR Only two days before Andre's visa is set to expire

and he has to leave the United States,

he invites Loreen out on a farewell date.

SGT EVANS We hypothesize he professed his love for her,

and she told him that she just wanted to be friends

and that she wasn't willing to marry him at this time

nor go overseas.
[ … ]

And I think this caused him to go into a rage.

[pounding]

[music playing]

DR GARAVAGLIA She has the defense

wounds on the tips of her fingers

trying to grab the Kn*fe.

Five s*ab wounds to the chest.

One on the upper left chest ends up

going into her pericardial sac and hitting her pulmonary vein.

NARRATOR Loreen is still alive and bleeding to death when

Andre moves her body from the front seat

and shoves her down onto the backseat floor.

Detectives believe that the trash bags found near her body

suggest that Andre may have been planning

to dispose of Loreen's body.

SGT EVANS When he placed her in the back seat,

she was obviously bleeding.

There's transfer blood in the back seat.

There's smearing in the back seat.

I was wonder, you know, what's that time

period between after k*lling somebody

and k*lling themselves.

And what was he thinking afterwards?

You know, you kind of wonder what's going through his head.

NARRATOR Whether Andre was considering

hiding Loreen's body and fleeing, no one will ever know.

But Dr. G's forensic evidence shows without question

what he did next.

Andre goes into a suicidal frenzy.

He's slicing his arm times in a row parallel

down his anterior forearm.

That obviously wasn't k*lling him fast enough.

So he sticks the Kn*fe into his heart.

[clapping]

She is deeply loved.

And like it says on her gravestone, our angel.

DAVID If I could tell Loreen anything now,

I'd tell her I loved her more than anything.

I would have given my life for hers

DR GARAVAGLIA You know domestic v*olence happens.

And sometimes it's hard to predict

when it's going to happen.

I mean, I think she might have felt something.

I mean, she might have had some forewarning

that he was the jealous type, that he

maybe was a little prone to some bizarre behavior that way.

And, you know, trust your instincts.

NARRATOR Coming up next, Dr. G gets

another deadly domestic abuse case.

But this time it appears a woman has turned

the tables on a violent man.

They go outside.

She goes down the steps.

He's coming at her with his g*n, and she sh**t him.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

[music playing]

NARRATOR Women like Loreen Behner

die at the hands of aggressive males

with little warning and often no defense.

But occasionally the tables are turned

and the victim fights back.

But for the medical examiner, determining

the truth in these instances is never cut and dried.

In his years as a deputy sheriff in San

Antonio, Texas, Roberto Valadez has seen his share

of abusive relationships.

Recently, he may have slid into one of his own.

Thelma Jean Smith is his girlfriend of three months.

During that time, they frequently quarreled.

Police records show they even threatened

each other with g*ns.

Now, the relationship has reached a flashpoint.

JODEE My father finally decided after several confrontations

with her that this was not the woman he wanted to be with.

NARRATOR Late one Saturday night,

Thelma is at Roberto's apartment packing up her belongings.

According to her, there's one last argument.

And again, the g*ns come out.

His Glock duty w*apon and her revolver.

Two sh*ts are fired.

[g*n sh*ts] A call to -- alerts the police.

JOE MORRIS They notified my office that they had a sh**ting

with one individual sh*t.

So I drove to the scene.

NARRATOR Detectives arrive at AM.

Thelma is waiting for them scared, but unscathed.

The same can't be said for Roberto.

JOE MORRIS The victim was lying at the bottom of some stairs.

These were outside stairs.

He had apparently fallen violently down the stairs.

NARRATOR Thelma then tells the story she would stand by.

JOE MORRIS She said that he had been drinking,

and he was brandishing his duty w*apon,

threatening to sh**t her.

NARRATOR Thelma admits that she fired first,

a warning sh*t that struck the front door

jamb of the apartment.

She claims she then ran out the door and down the stairs.

But Roberto was not far behind.

Once again, she says, he threatened to k*ll her.
[ … ]

There was only one way to save herself.

She feared for her life and she sh*t him.

NARRATOR Thelma's second sh*t struck Roberto in the head.

He tumbled down the stairs and, according to her,

landed on his back.

When paramedics arrived, Roberto was loaded into an ambulance,

but dies en route to the hospital.

To the police, Thelma's story seems credible,

a victim of domestic v*olence turning

the tables on her oppressor.

Roberto's children, however, say their dad

just didn't fit the profile.

JODEE We grew up in a home where there was--

I mean, there was no abuse whatsoever to be spoken of.

And my father was never a violent person.

Anybody who knew my father knew right away that this was just,

you know--

this was a lie.

NARRATOR Roberto's body is transported to the Bexar County

Medical Examiner's Office, there Dr. G

begins her investigation by going

over the crime scene paperwork.

On the initial investigative report

I'm told that we have a gentleman in the morgue

that has got a g*nsh*t wound.

Our investigator states that he had been

living with his girlfriend.

It sounded likes a bit of a rocky relationship.

She claims that they were drunk.

He was fighting.

And she wanted out of there.

And he had his g*n.

And, of course, she has a g*n.

And they go outside.

She goes down the steps.

He's coming at her with his g*n, and she sh**t him.

He's up on the stairs.

And she's sh**ting up at him, according to her story.

NARRATOR Thelma also said that Roberto fell down the steps,

landing face up, and that no one touched the body

until the police arrived.

In the overwhelming majority of fatal domestic disputes,

men are the K*llers and women the victims.

Of the approximately , domestic deaths

occurring each year in the US, % of them are women.

Thelma claims that if she hadn't acted,

she would have been added to the list.

Will Dr. G's findings back her up?

The central question in a case like this

is, can we confirm her story?

Does the angle of the b*llet, does where he sh*t all

confirm what she has to say?

[music playing]

NARRATOR Dr. G begins the external exam

checking to see whether any visible trauma

supports Thelma's version.

Roberto was found on his back.

She's looking to find injuries consistent with such a fall.

Strangely, there are none.

I'd expect bruises on his back.

I'd expect a nice bump on the back of the head.

NARRATOR Dr. G Now examines the front of the body

and is surprised to find trauma there.

What I see is a kind of a pattern

abrasion across his chest.

Mm, that one little acute don't look good.

DR GARAVAGLIA His gum is torn.

His lip is tore.

His chips his partial plate off.

No question, he takes a hard fall.

NARRATOR For a man who supposedly fell backwards,

he has taken a lot of punishment to his face and chest.

But all those are minor injuries compared with the g*nsh*t

to the head, which consists of two wounds, a small hole

and a slit below it.

Probably where I looked at it look like the entrance,

it looks like he's got a little bit of an exit

just above the eyebrow, about an inch above the eyebrow

and a little bit more to the right.

So it looks like, hm, entrance, exit.

NARRATOR Finding a b*llet's entrance

and exit points so close together is unusual.

On further examination, Dr. G also finds evidence

of a second g*nsh*t injury.

DR GARAVAGLIA And then he's got a graze type, very superficial,"], index ,…}

on the inner aspect of his left calf.

NARRATOR Since the first b*llet hit

a doorjamb inside the house, and the second struck

the man's head, the question is, which b*llet caused this wound?"], index ,…}

A good forensic pathologist has to be open minded to all

the possibilities.

If you start being closed minded,

you're going to miss things.

NARRATOR Coming up next, Dr. G's scalpel

comes out and cuts more holes in the k*ller's story.

Well, right there, I can tell you that's not true.

That just couldn't have happened.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

[music playing]

NARRATOR At the Bexar County morgue,
[ … ]

Dr. G begins the critical phase of Roberto Valadez's autopsy--

the internal exam.

The deputy Sheriff has been sh*t dead by his girlfriend,

allegedly in self-defense.

According to her story, he's on the eighth step,

coming down.

If you count eight up, that's where he is.

She's on about the second step.

And he's coming at her.

And so she's sh**ting him in fear of her life.

[music playing]

OK, scalpel.

I'll make the initial one.

We're ready to go, right?

NARRATOR Dr. G makes the usual y incision in the chest.

But even before she gets to the internal organs,

she finds something.

One of the ribs has been broken.

And she soon discovers that's not the only thing

that's been fractured.

Lo and behold, he's even broken

his neck with that hard fall.

So he really hits that face going down.

So he goes down like a ton of bricks.

I don't like the broken neck aspect.

He's out already, because he's not protecting--

when you fall, you protect your face.

You put your hands out.

He can't put his hands out.

He's got a b*llet in his head.

NARRATOR The evidence is clear, Roberto Valadez fell face down,"], index ,…}

which raises a critical question.

How did he end up on his back where police found him?

Dr. G now suspects someone rolled

him over after he had fallen.

And since the police determined there was no one else present,

that someone could only be Thelma.

Let's check.

NARRATOR But Roberto's injuries have only

begun to tell their story of what

happened in the final moments of his life.

Dr. G now zeros in on the head wound

to see what it might reveal.

Earlier, the external examine had

revealed that the head wound had a small round hole and a slit

below.

Now that the skull itself is exposed, she learns why.

DR GARAVAGLIA We get to the head.

We get to the g*nsh*t wound.

And it's one of my favorite wounds, the keyhole--

the keyhole defect in the skull, because it looks

like a keyhole on the bone.

NARRATOR A keyhole wound as unusual,

occurring only when a b*llet strikes

the skull at a steep angle.

The b*llet penetrates the bone, leaving a round hole.

A fragment breaks off the b*llet and then

chips away part of the entrance wound as it is exiting.

What makes such a wound significant is that the round

part of the keyhole always faces the g*n and the chip bone,

the direction the b*llet is traveling.

In this case, the chip is at the lower left edge of the wound.

So what's that means is that the b*llet's

coming in on that left side very sharply downward.

NARRATOR The finding appears to indicate that Thelma was not

standing below Roberto as she claimed, but above him

and f*ring at a steep angle downward.

Still, it's too early to jump to conclusions.

Dr. G must explore the entire range of possibilities.

Hm, well, maybe he's bent down.

Maybe he's going down.

Or he's somehow inverted.

NARRATOR If Roberto was bent over trying to duck a b*llet,

the wound could have been caused by a sh*t from below.

This possibility is the one remaining chance

that Thelma's story is true.

Coming up, did Thelma act in self-defense?

Or is she a ruthless k*ller?

An unlikely clue in a flesh wound

may hold the key to the mystery.

I don't always get the answer.

I don't.

But I love it when I do.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

[music playing]

NARRATOR The autopsy of g*nsh*t victim Roberto Valadez

draws to a close.

As a dark cloud of suspicion grows over his girlfriend,

Dr. G has found a so-called keyhole wound in Roberto skull

that indicates the direction the sh*t was fired

and seems to contradict Thelma Jean Smith's account.

But there's one scenario that needs to be eliminated.

If Roberto was confronted in a bent over position

when Thelma fired, the head wound

could be consistent with her story and her claim

that she acted in self-defense.

Dr. G needs to find a way to prove whether Roberto was

standing straight up or not.

Meanwhile, outside the morgue, a parallel investigation is

being conducted by detectives.
[ … ]

And they are uncovering provocative information

about Thelma Jean Smith.

According to Roberto's family, Thelma

was anything but the battered woman she claimed to be.

JODEE She had been stalking him and constantly calling him.

NARRATOR Thelma said that she had broken up with Roberto.

But Roberto's daughter believes it was the other way around.

Her reaction was if I can't have Robert,

then no one else can.

I would rather see him dead than have anybody else with him.

NARRATOR Back at the morgue, Dr. G has almost

all the pieces of the puzzle necessary pointing to m*rder,

except one.

The keyhole wound in Roberto skull

indicates that the g*n was fired downwards,

but only if his face was in an upright position.

What if he had been bent over during the time

of the sh**ting?

Ironically, the answer to the question

may be found in another g*nsh*t wound, one caused by a b*llet

that grazed Roberto's calf.

The entrance wound was atypical, very irregular,

and was consistent with not a typical intact b*llet,

was consistent with just a piece of that b*llet coming at him.

NARRATOR Dr. G knows that the first b*llet

ended up hole in the doorjamb.

So it could not have caused the leg world.

If Dr. G can show that a b*llet fragment from the keyhole wound

struck Roberto's leg, she can establish his posture

at the time of death and finally settle the question of

whether or not Thelma is lying.

If you looked at the calf, it be like in the to

o'clock position.

NARRATOR She re-examines the leg entry wound looking

for something called skin tags.

A skin tag is how the b*llet then tears the skin

as it's going across the skin.

It forms tears and in between the tears a little tag a skin.

The tag of skin points to where the b*llet's coming from.

NARRATOR The skin tags are pointing sharply upwards.

This is a critical discovery.

It proves beyond doubt that Roberto had to have been

standing up when he was sh*t.

Using the head and leg wounds as signposts,

Dr. G can now trace the actual path of the b*llet.

Thelma is standing above Roberto and fires.

The b*llet crashes downward through the head,

a piece of it splintering off into the left calf.

This exposes Thelma's story to police for what it is.

My final conclusion is she's telling a pack of lies.

[music playing]

NARRATOR With her findings complete,

Dr. G can now give her theory about what

happened to Roberto Valadez on the night of his death.

It's AM at Roberto's apartment,

and he's told Thelma to vacate the premises.

JODEE This woman had written several letters

that we found in my dad's apartment that had

made threats, physical threats.

NARRATOR Thelma carries her belongings to her car.

But leaving is the last thing on her mind.

She returns to the apartment, armed with her loaded .

When she enters, Roberto was unarmed and has

no idea what's about to happen.

Frankly, what it looked like is she

fired one sh*t and missed him.

NARRATOR The first b*llet hits the doorjamb.

He started running down the stairs, running for his life.

NARRATOR He just can't run fast enough.

And she stood at the top of the stairs and ex*cuted him.

[g*n sh*t]

NARRATOR The keyhole wound is the first clue

that Thelma fired from above.

She's sh**ting down at him.

NARRATOR The telltale skin tags of Roberto's leg confirm it.

Thelma fires the b*llet downward from atop the stairwell, not

the bottom.

As it enters the brain, the damage is catastrophic.

He fell face down like a ton of bricks.

He can't put his hands out.

He's got a b*llet in his head.

NARRATOR Roberto falls through space,

impacting face first on the concrete stairs,

breaking a rib and his neck.

Then, to make the sh**ting seem like self-defense,

she turns him over and places his g*n in his hand.

This deadly domestic dispute wasn't self-defense after all.

It was a vicious m*rder.

On the trip to the hospital, Roberto

succumbs to his injuries.

On the death certificate--

NARRATOR Confronted with the evidence from the autopsy,

Thelma comes clean.

JOE MORRIS Later in the morning,

she did confess to having sh*t him

and then put the g*n in his hand.

NARRATOR Thelma Jean Smith is charged with the m*rder

of Roberto Valadez.

A judge allows her to post bail.

But she immediately skips town becoming a fugitive.
[ … ]

For three long years, she lives on the lamb

until she makes a mistake and files for unemployment

in Kansas City.

[music playing]

NARRATOR When domestic v*olence results in death,

the vast majority of victims are women.

But Roberto's death is a tragic exception to the rule.

In , men d*ed at the hands

of their intimate partners, about /

of all the domestic v*olence fatalities.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of domestic v*olence cases

that we see.

In my rule of thumb in living, I tell people that you better

know who you're dating and who you end up marrying

and early know that person well, because so many of our I

see down here dead, one way or the other.

NARRATOR Roberto learned the lesson too late.

But his family has received a measure of justice.

Thelma Jean Smith is now in prison, serving

a -year sentence for m*rder.

She had played the card of abuse victim,

only to be trumped by Dr. G.

When the victim is, you know, six feet under and can't speak

for themselves, it just does a family wonders

to know that there is someone like Dr. G who is out there

and willing to investigate.

It's great when you can really say

definitively this is what happened

and I'm going to stick with it.

Yeah, you put the mystery together.

You get an answer.

I don't always get the answer.

I don't know.

But I love it when I do.

[music playing]